Bird Photography – How to Take Great Pictures

Bird photography is one of the most popular types of animal photography and can be one of the most difficult. The biggest challenge with taking bird pictures is getting the birds to perch exactly where you want them. So here are some tips for how to attract birds to your yard and how you can persuade them to perch on branches perfect for taking pictures.

The best way to get great bird pictures is to create a bird “photo shoot” and attract birds to your backyard.  So, here are a few tips in creating a bird friendly backyard.

1) Create feeding stations and birdbaths in areas that are great for taking pictures (offer nice backgrounds). Try to have a background in a solid color like green, brown or black as this will make the bird really stand out in your image. Try to avoid areas with sunshine hot spots (that show as a bright white spots) as these will distract from the bird in the picture.

2) Choose a location that gives the birds a little protection and makes them feel safe from predators.

3) Determine what types of birds you want to attract and then find out what is the proper type of bird food to attract them. You can find out by checking with the Audubon Society or going to the National Wildlife Federation’s Gardening for Wildlife website for more information. It’s important to feed the birds properly with quality seed as if you give them “bread crumbs” during the winter they may fill up on this “junk food” and be unable to stay warm at night.

4) Position bird feeders and bird baths near trees or shrubs that have areas easy for perching. By having the feeders near trees with low branches, this increases the chance the birds will land there before going to the feeder or bird bath.

Once you have a good position for your bird photo shoot, now you need to set up your camera for shooting. Normally, the best way to get a great bird picture is staking out a location and waiting for them to land.  This generally won’t take long if you have your feeding stations set up and established as a source of food. But for photographers who prefer to work on chance, you can occasionally get lucky when chasing birds from branch to branch. The only problem is that you have to hope the bird stays on the branch long enough for you to get the shot. So, here are some tips on setting up your camera.

1) Since birds are so active, you will need a high shutter speed  of at least 1/250 (or you can also use Spots mode). If you don’t use a high shutter speed, a slight flick of a tail or head movement will leave your photos fuzzy.

2) If you can, use a telephoto lens on your SLR.  Or, if you have an optical zoom on your digital compact camera definitely use it. When using a zoom or telephoto lens, you will also need a tripod otherwise your images will lack clarity. And if you are trying to take birds in flight or perched high in trees, professional photographers often use a 600 lens to capture good detail from far away.  Since telephoto lens are expensive, some birders use digiscoping. Digiscoping combines a spotting scope with a digital camera as you can read about here.

Hopefully these few tips can help you attract more birds to your yard and help you capture some truly amazing bird photographs.

Thank you to Luc Viatour for the use of his fabulous images.